<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<HEAD>
     <TITLE>Text</TITLE>
     <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../../../ss/2.css" id="thecss">
     <script type="text/javascript" src="../../../scripts/csschange.js"></script>
</HEAD>

<BODY onload="readSS()">

<br>
<center>
<table border=3 cellpadding=5 cellspacing=0>
<tr>
     <td><h1 class="pagetitle">Text Characters</h1>
         <b class="alert">End Tag:</b> <span class="magicword">NA</span><br>
         <b><a href="../../../misc/suppkey.htm">Support Key:</a></b> <b><i class="fs"> 2
         </i></b>|<b class="s"> 3 </b>|<b class="s"> 3.2 </b>|<b class="s"> 4
         </b>|<b class="s"> IE1 </b>|<b><i class="fs"> M1
         </i></b>|<b class="s"> N1 </b>|<b class="s"> O2.1</b></td>
     <td><a href="#what">What is it?</a><br>
         <a href="#attrib">Attributes</a><br>
         <a href="#example">Tag Example</a>
     </td>
     <td><a href="#model">Parent/Content Model</a><br>
         <a href="#tips">Tips &amp; Tricks</a><br>
         <a href="#peculiar">Browser Peculiarities</a></td>
</tr>
<tr><td align=center colspan=3>
<font size=2>= <span class="sitetitle">Index DOT Html</span> by <a href="../../../misc/email.htm">Brian Wilson</a> =</font>
</td></tr>
</table>

<font size=2>
     <a href="../../index.html">Main Index</a> |
     <a href="../../tree/htmltree.htm">Element Tree</a> |
     <a href="../../tagindex/a.htm">Element Index</a> |
     <a href="../../supportkey/a.htm">HTML Support History</a></font>
</center>
<hr align="center" width="25%">

<br>
<a name="what"></a>
<dl>
<dt><big><b class="mainheading">What is it?</b></big>
     <dd>A text character usually lives as an Octet, which is a single byte
         or 8 bits of data. Using 8 bits allows for 256 possible distinct character
         codes (a range from 0-255.) While the HTTP protocol that is used to
         transport web documents allows the full 256 character range of the
         <a href="../text.htm#iso8859">ISO 8859-1</a> characters to be transmitted
         (allowing support of <a href="../text.htm#languages">many western languages</a>),
         not all operating systems or applications may natively support this range.
         <br><br>
<a name="ascii"></a>
         In order to increase portability/viewability of the entire character set,
         HTML offers alternative versions of all the ISO 8859-1 characters
         using coded entity representations. These codes are created using
         characters from the proper subset of the ISO-8859-1 character set known
         as <a href="../../../misc/glossary.htm#ascii">ASCII</a> (in all ISO 8859
         languages ASCII is the character range 0-127.)
         A special syntax is used to represent these
         <a href="../c/charents.htm">Character Entities</a> using either a number
         value or a shorthand mnemonic word. Character entities can
         address the entire ISO 8859-1 character range, but the printable characters
         that make up the ASCII character set (032-126) usually do not need to be
         encoded. It is this subset that makes up the 'TEXT' grouping that this
         page is named for.
     <table cellpadding=2>
     <tr>
         <th rowspan=3><b class="subheading">Printable ASCII<br>Character
             Set Positions</b></th>
         <td><hr></td>
     </tr>
     <tr>
         <td align=center><a href="../entities/charentity32-64.htm">032-064</a> |
             <a href="../entities/charentity65-96.htm">065-096</a> |
             <a href="../entities/charentity97-126.htm">097-126</a></td>
     </tr>
     <tr><td><hr></td></tr>
     </table>
</dl>


<a name="reserved"></a>
<dl>
<dt><br><big><b class="mainheading">Reserved HTML Characters</b></big>
     <dd><span class="text">While most all computers and browsers should recognize ASCII,
     a few common characters in this range are reserved for use in the HTML
     language. These exceptions [see chart below] will need to be encoded
     as <a href="../c/charents.htm">character entities</a> if they are to be
     displayed in an HTML document. The use of the Entity Name is encouraged
     over the Entity Number in these special cases.</span>

    <dl>
    <dd><table cellpadding=3 cellspacing=0>
        <tr>
        <th valign=bottom><b class="subheading">Character&#160;Name</b></th>
        <th valign=bottom><b class="subheading">ISO&#160;8859-1<br>position</b></th>
        <th valign=bottom><b class="subheading">Entity<br>Number</b></th>
        <th valign=bottom><b class="subheading">Entity<br>Name</b></th>
        <th valign=bottom><b class="subheading">HTML<br>result</b></th>
        </tr>
        <tr><td colspan=5><hr></td></tr>
        <tr>
         <td align=left><b class="alert2">Quotation Mark<br>Ampersand<br>
             Less Than Symbol<br>Greater Than Symbol</b></td>
         <td align=center>34<br>38<br>60<br>62</td>
         <td align=center>&amp;#34;<br>&amp;#38;<br>&amp;#60;<br>&amp;#62;</td>
         <td align=center>&amp;quot;<br>&amp;amp;<br>&amp;lt;<br>&amp;gt;</td>
         <td align=center>&quot;<br>&amp;<br>&lt;<br>&gt;</td></tr>
        <tr><td colspan=5><hr></td></tr>
        </table>
    </dl>
</dl>


<a name="attrib"></a>
<dl>
<dt><br><big><b class="mainheading">Attributes</b></big>
     <dd><b class="alert">Text characters do not accept any attributes</b>
</dl>


<a name="example"></a>
<dl>
<dt><big><b class="mainheading">Example</b></big>
     <dd><div class="example"><span class="text">Hi there, this is normal text.
         Testing - 1, 2, 3.</span></div>
</dl>


<a name="model"></a>
<dl>
<dt><big><b class="mainheading">Parent Model</b></big>
     <dd><span class="text"><b class="alert">%<a href="../shorthands.htm#inlineparent">In-line
      Parent</a>%</b> |
      <b class="alert">%<a href="../shorthands.htm#blockparent">Block Parent</a>%</b> |
         &lt;<a href="../d/del.htm">Del</a>&gt; |
   &lt;<a href="../i/ins.htm">Ins</a>&gt; |
   &lt;<a href="../l/legend.htm">Legend</a>&gt; |
   &lt;<a href="../o/option.htm">Option</a>&gt; |
   &lt;<a href="../s/script.htm">Script</a>&gt; |
      &lt;<a href="../s/style.htm">Style</a>&gt; |
   &lt;<a href="../t/textarea.htm">Textarea</a>&gt; |
   &lt;<a href="../t/title.htm">Title</a>&gt;</span>
<dt><big><b class="mainheading">Content Model</b></big>
     <dd><b class="alert">Text does not accept any content.</b>
</dl>


<a name="tips"></a>
<big><b class="mainheading">Tips &amp; Tricks</b></big>
<ul>
     <li><span class="text"><b class="alert">DTD Note:</b> The &amp;quot; named character
         entity was retracted from the HTML 3.2 DTD. There is still some confusion
         as to <em>WHY</em> this was done, as this entity is in wide use, and exists in the
         HTML 2.0, 3.0 and 4.0 DTDs. There are two differing stories as to why
         it was deleted from the 3.2 DTD:</span>
         <ol>
            <li><span class="text">Dan Connolly (co-author of HTML 2.0) has said the
       omission was a mistake.</span>
            <li><span class="text">Dave Raggett (author of HTML 3.0, 3.2 and 4.0)
       has said that the omission was intentional due to a disagreement in
    the HTML ERB over which entities should be in HTML 3.2. Only the basic
    set of entities was agreed upon. (Many thanks to a reader who sent me
    some mail clarifying this.)</span>
         </ol>
         <span class="text">Any documents using &amp;quot; will generate validation
   errors under the HTML 3.2 DTD, but it should be safe to leave these entities
   in legacy documents due to wide legacy and future browser/DTD support. The
   alternate form of this entity ('&amp;#34;') <em>WILL</em> validate and should
   be considered when authoring new documents.</span>
</ul>

<a name="peculiar"></a>
<big><b class="mainheading">Browser Peculiarities</b></big>
<ul>
     <li><span class="text">Nothing to Report</span>
</ul>


<br>
<a href="../../../misc/copyright.htm">Boring Copyright Stuff...</a>

</BODY>
</HTML>